Visitor logs

Last Updated Apr 14, 2017 10:35 PM EDT The White House won’t make public the logs of visitors to the White House complex, breaking with the practice of President Trump’s predecessor.Senior White House officials cited privacy and national security concerns for the decision, which they say is in line with what previous administrations have done — except for President Obama’s. They say continuing to release the records could interfere with policy development, among other things.“Given the grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, the White House Office will disclose Secret Service logs as outlined under the Freedom of Information Act, a position the Obama White House successfully defended in federal court,” White House Communications Director Michael Dubke announced in a statement.” The White House statement went on to say that the government would not be renewing a contract for … [Read more...] about CBS News Logo
White House visitor logs won’t be made public

House Democrats are planning to force a floor fight Thursday over a bill that would require President Trump to release his taxes as well as visitor logs to the White House, according to The Washington Post. Aides said Democrats plan to use procedural gimmicks to try to force a vote on a bill proposed by Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Massachusetts, in the House the report said. Democrats have been pressuring the president since the campaign to release his tax returns, but he has claimed he can't because he's under audit. Meanwhile, the White House recently decided not to make logs of visitors to the White House public, breaking with the practice of the Obama administration. Senior officials said the decision was a result of privacy and national security concerns. The Democrats' strategy Thursday is expected to be more of a symbolic move, since Republicans would block the legislation, but they hope it can be used to align GOP incumbents in competitive re-election races with President Trump … [Read more...] about CBS News Logo
Report: House Dems want to force floor vote on Trump’s taxes, White House visitor logs

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has agreed to release visitor logs for President Trump's "Winter White House," his family's private Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, and the information will be released to the public in early September. In a press release on Monday, the left-leaning nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) cited its ongoing litigation in conjunction with the National Security Archive (NSA) and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in DHS' decision to "turn over visitor logs for President Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence." According to the release, DHS has until September 8 to send information to CREW about "presidential visitors" of the luxurious country club and golf course, where Mr. Trump has spent more than 20 days since his inauguration. The club is owned by the Trump Organization. In April, CREW, NSA and Knight sued DHS under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to attain visitor information from … [Read more...] about CBS News Logo
Group will release Mar-a-Lago visitor logs, plans for another DHS lawsuit

A nonprofit watchdog group says it will fight for the guest list from President Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in court, after the federal government only turned over 22 names. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) on Friday said it will be "fighting this in court," after the Secret Service disclosed only a handful of names of people who have visited the president's so-called "southern White House" in Florida, despite an extension on a federal judge's order that the Secret Service divulge the names. That July ruling was a part of an ongoing lawsuit CREW brought against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) earlier this year. The Secret Service was supposed to hand over visitor logs, which CREW intended to publish, to CREW, the National Security Archive and the Knight First Amendment Institute by noon on Friday. The original deadline was Sept. 8. The government disclosed only the names of a few individuals -- all of them from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's … [Read more...] about CBS News Logo
Watchdog group will keep fighting in court for Mar-a-Lago visitor logs

Last week, the Secret Service banished pedestrians from the south side of the White House after too many unauthorized visitors managed to leap over the fence. The gates of the White House are still open wide for invited guests. But the rest of us can’t know who they are anymore. For nearly eight years, the White House visitor logs were open to the public, and President Barack Obama described the lists of who visited whom as a keystone of his legacy on open government. Earlier in April, the Trump administration announced that making those lists public violated privacy and threatened national security — even though Obama’s lists already scrubbed the names of secret agents and such. “The comings and goings of lobbyists and billionaires looking for tax breaks is not classified information,” said Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor and former ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “That’s a complete farce.” Painter is … [Read more...] about Public left on the street after White House visitor logs go dark